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Wednesday, June 09, 2004
Zero Tier Health Care
A month ago, the NDP government in Saskatchewan announced another round of bed closures and service reductions in rural areas. In fact, this was a greatly scaled back version of what had been suggested. With the finance department still juggling budget figures as of May, the cuts proposed were dramatic. Fearing the political fallout, a smaller package of service cutbacks were decided on at, quite literally, the eleventh hour.
Rural hospitals are not well utilized - some serve as little more than expensive long term care for the elderly. Until, of course, a farm accident or heart attack occurs. My father, for example, went into the local hospital about 12 years ago for observation and suffered a heart attack while under a monitor and nursing care - and survived as a result of it. Forced to drive an hour that afternoon to seek medical advice when he wasn't feeling well, he may not have attempted - or completed - the trip.
That hospital was one of the ones reprieved in this last run of closures.
Closing beds in an urban center (in the city of Saskatoon, pop 200,000, there are three fully equipped hospitals) results in surgical delays and lengthened waiting lists. But 24 hour emergency and critical care services are not shut down.
Closing beds in rural communities forces rural families and ambulances to make increasingly lengthy trips to get treatment for critically ill or injured people - often over substandard, poorly maintained roads. The opportunity to stabilize a patient at a local facility is lost.
With the publicly funded hospital closed and private hospitals prohibited by law, large geographical areas are created where emergency medical care is effectively forbidden by the government.
In other words, zero-tier health care.
There may be a solution where these two problems - a shortage of advanced diagnostic services, and a shortage of rural emergency care - could be blended under a privately provided system. A government with imagination and courage could re-examine these small communities, and having satisfied themselves that hospital emergency services are not affordable under the fully funded public system, designate these areas as "free enterprise" health zones. In these zones only, investors would be allowed to set up private diagnostic facilities. Existing buildings would already be available for sale or lease.
There would be one provision - private servers would be required to provide basic 24 hour emergency services in the same facility. Residents who qualified to have their services covered under SaskHealth would still be covered in the usual manner, while those who wished to could purchase diagnostic services (or any other health service offered) privately or through different insurers.
The side benefit? Increased economic activity in smaller rural communities. Instead of farm families having to find expensive accomodations in the cities while awaiting diagnosis and treatment, urban residents would be travelling out of town to seek theirs - thereby, taking pressure off the existing MRI facilities in major centers while stimulating local rural economies.
Posted by Kate McMillan on June 9, 2004 | Permalink
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A month ago, the NDP government in Saskatchewan announced another round of bed closures and service reductions in rural areas. In fact, this was a greatly scaled back version of what had been suggested. With the finance department still juggling... [Read More]
Tracked on 2004-06-09 5:40:28 PM
Comments
By goll, I think you did it!!
You actually have a solution that makes sense!!
Shout it from the rooftops!
Your ideas really make a lot of sense, probably too much sense; the politicans will never go for it.
In Ontario we also have many problems with access to emergency health care. Instead of the problems being examined in a critical manner, gov't slashes and hacks away, instead of finding a viable solution.
A new 'health insurance premimium' has now been strapped to our backs here and I am quite concerned about it. A person earning in a low income bracket has to pay $300./yr, and mid income $600./yr and above $38,000 (I think that's the #) must pay $900/yr. We also have to pay for eye exams. Therefore in my estimation a low to mid income person will barely be able to afford health care, but now can't afford an eye check up or a dentist appointment for that matter either!!
Whats wrong with these politicans!! Don't they realize that preventative medicine saves money??
Thank-you for your comments and continue your good work.
Janice
Posted by: janice Veenman | 2004-06-10 6:52:03 PM
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